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<Downloads>< Tutorials><History>
<The Language>
<DataTypes><Lists><I/O Commands>
< Logo or Pascal>< Template Commands ><Richness>< Examples>
When I picked up Integrate, the ACITT journal and found a copy of MSWLogo attached to the front, my first reaction was to say, "at last someone is taking LOGO seriously- this time I really must master it." This paper is really my 'learning notes' and may help others to enter the world of LOGO more speedily. The first point I must make is 'The errors are mine'. Then I must explain that I come to LOGO as a Pascal/C trained programmier working in the inner city with Keystage 3, 4 &5 youngsters- youngsters that don't specialise on intrinsic motivation- I speak the language of social inclusion.
I have noticed a lot of people coming to the Logo-L forum asking similar questions- like How do I start to learn Logo so that I can work with youngsters of-- such an age, and I know that there are many 'gifted and talented' professionals whose will help. All I intend to do is to provide a starting point
In the early days of computing in UK schools, LOGO was there but we were too busy batching up cards or checking coding sheets for ‘O’s in line numbers- then there was CPM to learn. Then came the wave of hobby computers.
Ten years ago, a proportion of our pupils had learnt some rudimentary coding in Basic, and the problem was to minimise their bad habits and introduce rigour and structure into their programming generally by teaching Pascal. Now we must teach programming (control?) skills from scratch as computers don’t arrive with a built in programming language. So has LOGOs time come? Can it replace Pascal at ‘A’ level? Has it other uses?
LOGO’s worst enemies have been its own turtle graphics, the ‘born again’ fervour of its child centred advocates and its inaccessibily to ‘Pascal’ and Fortran trained programmers.
A good spin doctor would describe LOGO as a dialect of Lisp (the artificial intelligence language) with a user friendly graphical front end. He would then explain that it has all the constructs needed to teach programming principles with the minimum of ‘syntax traps’. He would eulogise on the way that datastructures can be taught, and the easy way that mathmos can tackle geometry and calculus. As MSWLogo is freeware- students can legally take a copy for their home machine.
What exactly is LOGO, UCBLogo and MSWLOGO
Scheme and Logo are two dialects of Lisp, a language based on the processing of lists by using a composition of functions. In Logo everything is a procedure call. Procedural languages like Basic, C, and Pascal ultimately derive from Fortran, but Logo is a Lisp with Turtle graphics. Its creator Papert, studied with Piaget, and then worked at MIT.
There is no published standard . Logo has many dialects, some long dead and some extended . MSWLogo, the version ACITTdistributed was written by George Mills based on the work of Brian Harvey. Both Logos are free, so can be passed on to colleagues and students.
Brian Harvey wrote UCBLogo as a standard Logo that can be used on UNIX, Linux, DOS and Windows in DOS Mode.. He is the acknowledged expert on Logo and has written the only serious textbook suitable for teachers of IT. Computer Science Logo Style. Three Volumes published by The MIT Press. I got a copy of Volume 1 for £24.40 from amazon.co.uk. There are details of all his books on Logo and Scheme on his website.
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/
George Mills adapted UCB to take advantage of Windows dlls. It is not as pure as UCB but allows you to control the windows interface and some hardware features. There is provision for accessing dlls, midi sound and networking through TCP/IP can be invoked.
Jim Muller has worked with LOGO since 1979 and has written an elegant textbook that provides KS2 and KS3 teachers with a wealth of ideas.
http://www.coserv.net/~tgla
There are many Logo Tutorials on the Web. I started with Paul Dench
http://www.ecu.edu.au/pa/ecawa/sig/logo/paul_dench/turtle/index.htm
Jim Fuller is writing LOGO- working on control through the games port He has written a excellent formal tutorial.
http://www.southwest.com.au/~jfuller/logotut/menu.htm
Logo can be used at all levels, this tutorial will move too fast for some.but addresses some of the problems of elementary robotics.
A new tutorial -or more a formal course is at the moment being written by Simone Rudge- it emphasises good practice and comes with assessment sheets and useful links.
http://www.yukoncollege.yk.ca/~srudge/comp052/notes.html Yukon College Course
There is a wealth of logo ideas on the web, links can be found at
http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/educa/logo/goto.htm.
The logo newsgroup allows you to talk to all the people mentioned. To join send email to (LogoForum-subscribe@egroups.com) with no other text.
I have some further links of my own including a useful Quick Reference Card.
Other Logos
Comenius Logo-also called SuperLogo- Written at the Comenius University, Bratislava. Some Excellent work for KS2/KS3 students. This will give you a starting point.
http://www.edi.fmph.uniba.sk/tomcsanyiova/indexA.html
I have no experience
Each line is made up of 'function calls'. There are two types
A command is similar to a Pascal procedure, and a operation is similar to a Pascal function.
A special subset of operations called predicates, that just output the word "true or "false, these are conventionally written with a final ‘p’- like emptyp, wordp, listp.
Expressions can be primitives, or can be defined by the user.
Expressions can take zero, one or more parameters.
Mathematics in Logo uses prefix notation, like: sum :x :y, product :x :y, difference :x :y, quotient :x :y. Infix is also available.
help "keyword will bring up a full description of the expression .
There are three datatypes,
A number is a special case of word.
There is no strong typing. The interpreter detects the datatype by context.
There are two important symbols
This is an extremely useful symbol that keeps reminding students that a variable is really some ‘place’ in memory.
A number is a special case of self evaluation- it really could be written with a quote 2 is really "2
An alternative way of looking at this, maybe, isthat the second parameter is ‘passed by value’ while the first is ‘passed by address.’ Discuss.
Indirection (within a procedure) is possible with the form make :x :x + 1.
Discussing lists comes as a surprise to the Pascal programmer, who has managed quite well without them, however this opens many new possibilities. There seems to be few tutorials on this at any level- and none that can be plagiarised for school use. Arrays are also provided for the timid.
The standard Pascal controls are available, there is selection
There are iteration commands
Recursion is Logo prefered processing paradigm.
The standard commands are readlist readword readcharwith the normal input stream being the keyboard. In Unix tradition the input stream can be changed, so input can come from a disk file. Similarly, output can be redirected. The technique will be familiar to Pascal Programmers- using a sequence
MSWLogo allows input from COM ports and LPT ports and also ‘hardware‘ ports. MSWLogo also supports a windows interface thus I/O is available through this GUI- and keyboard and mouse events can trigger interrupts.
Logo is slow, it is not suitable for processsing vast amount of data- but surely this isn’t the point at ‘A’ level. Speed is not an issue anymore – sometimes it is educationally more useful if you can watch your program cranking through a problem. The visual output allows this. It assists the students understanding that the computer is working sequentially through the instructions.
Logo scores on graphics, and MSW allows you to use the Windows dll.. The crucial point for ‘A’ level teaching in Pascal is that students must master ‘pointers’ before they can do any useful data structure theory. This excludes all except the most committed. In Logo, Lists, stacks and queues are trivial. Trees are more fun. All are recursive in nature. .
Our students can be ‘reluctant progammers’ Many take no pride in computer programming and here the superior graphics helps to retain interest- Pascal cannot offer that.
If you are that committed to Pascal, UCBLogo and MSWLogo include a rudimentary Pascal intrepreter written in Logo as one of its examples
Yes, there is turtle graphics. While ten years ago youngsters were excited by drawing a simple line on the screen, their aspirations have changed. The turtle graphics can be used to demonstrate visually the more complex ideas such as iteration and recursion. Its weakness is that it sends out the message that- "I used that when I was eight—do you think I am a baby?"
This is not a problem if.
The expert can generate series of graphics in LOGO. Save them as bitmaps then combine them as an animated gif for the killer web page.
With MSWLogo students can draw on the screen modal and modeless windows, buttons, comboboxes and slidebars. The buttons can be programmed to invoke code. Such a GUI is essential in todays youngsters minds. It allows the less gifted the chance of producing sa professional looking front end. It allows students to trigger events- in a way not offered in Pascal. It frees vast amounts of practical time for deeper study- and leads in to Form design in Access.
A tune is essentially a list of notes, and MSW has a sound command. It also can use MIDI files. More potential for gaining students interest. As you invoke the frequency and time as parameters there is opportunity to investigate the physics of music.You can get multiple PCs singing in harmony.
There is I/O to files, keyboard, to the COM and LPT ports, and from the games port. There are TCP/IP networking functions. This allows control possiblities. All I personally need is a set of ready made robots, and an operating system that allows me personal control of my machines I/O ports.
MSW Logo is rich, it is freeware and MSWLogo can deliver. What’s missing seems to be simple tutorials explaining these things. We need tutorials to extend the gifted, we need tutorials for the average and tutorials for special needs. We need tutorials on all aspects of the National curriculum. We need tutorials written in a way that we as Fortran/Pascal trained teachers can understand.
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In the UK, children enter Year R at 4
years, Year 1 at 5 years and continue to Year 11 at 16years.
Years 1 and 2 are in Key Stage 1 (5-7),
years 3 to 6 are in Key Stage 2 (7-11)
Years 7 to 9 are in Key Stage 3 (11-14)
and years 10 and 11 are in Key Stage 4 (14-16).
They optionally do Year 12 and 13 also called the Sixth Form and KeyStage 5.